


The First 5 Times Tony & Nat (Accidentally) Cuddled

by flipflop_diva



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Drinking, F/M, Five Times, Friendship, Light Angst, Natasha Needs a Hug, Nightmares, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Pre-Relationship, Sick Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6723418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony was pretty sure none of those times was his fault. But it also wasn't his fault that she was very comfortable to spoon with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First 5 Times Tony & Nat (Accidentally) Cuddled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meatball42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/gifts).



> Meatball42, I'd originally wanted to write you Avengers Academy fic (since that's what we matched on), but I just couldn't help falling in love with your MCU Tony & Nat prompts. So this happened instead. I hope you enjoy!

1.

The first time was a mistake. It was late and the mansion was dark and he was tired, and who the hell falls asleep in someone else’s bed anyway, especially when said person wasn’t supposed to be there at all?

But Pepper was supposed to be there, and, again, it was late and it was dark, and he didn’t check that it was light red hair instead of dark red hair (because why would he do that anyway?), and she was buried under a blanket and a comforter (the same way, he would add, that Pepper sleeps), so it wasn’t like he could tell she was six inches shorter. So he got in bed and slipped his arms around her and buried his nose in her hair (okay, so maybe he noticed that it smelled different, but what did he know? Maybe Pepper bought a new shampoo, and it’s not like he had ever sniffed Natasha’s hair before. Or at least not more than once, but he wasn’t thinking about that in that moment) and promptly fell asleep.

He woke up via an elbow to the gut and a hard kick to the shin.

“Natalie!” he shouted as soon as he was aware of who was glaring at him, that much in shock he forgot her new name. Or her real name. Whichever.

“Don’t ever touch me again,” she hissed, eyes narrowed, like she wasn’t the one who had trespassed. She kept up that stony expression until he apologized profusely and left his own room.

He never told anyone about what happened, he definitely never mentioned it to Natasha, and he also never did find out why in the hell she was asleep in his bed anyway.

(He also, for the record, never mentioned that she was very comfortable to spoon with.)

 

2.

The second time was an accident. In both their defense, it was really exhausting saving the world from attacking Chitauri and, as Tony liked to remind the entire team for days on end (or maybe months on end. Who was counting?), falling back to earth through a giant hole. 

So it wasn’t like they had meant to fall asleep on the couch watching movies. It’s just what happened. And it was Clint who had suggested a team movie night in the first place. No aliens. Something funny, that they could all just watch to take their minds off things. 

Tony had claimed the couch in the middle of his giant living room because, you know, it was his, and then Clint had taken the other side of the couch, and the guy _had_ been mind controlled so Tony wasn’t about to fight him over seating placement. But then, there came little Miss Ninja Assassin, and the next thing Tony knew, she had plopped down between them, even though there were multiple other places in the room she could have sat. 

And it wasn’t that Tony was afraid of her (maybe he was afraid of how hard she could hit when he wasn’t in his suit, but that was more than understandable), but it was really just that he was too tired to argue with anyone, so he let her stay, even though for someone so small, she seemed to take up an awful lot of room. Especially when she decided to lie with her head in Clint’s lap and her feet on Tony’s, even though he had not at all indicated he was okay with that, but well, she did have nice legs and it was the first time he touched her (since she stopped pretending to be Natalie) that she didn’t bite his head off, so he decided he could be nice about it.

Somewhere during movie two, he finally drifted off, even though sleeping in front of people was not something he did. Ever. But again, fighting aliens, dropping down from space — it can leave a guy exhausted. And that wasn’t the point anyway. The point was sometime during the night, Tony blinked awake to the sound of infomercials to find the lights still on and the rest of their teammates completely vanished and his chest covered by a sea of red hair.

He wasn’t actually sure how she had gotten like that — she was almost on top of him and her arms were around his waist and he realized in horror that his arms were also around her, holding her against him — but it took him only two seconds to decide he didn’t want to face her wrath, so he just stayed where he was and tried to go back to sleep.

Sometime later, when he was somewhere between sleep and not asleep, he felt her stir. A few moments after that, the arms around him and the weight on his chest both were gone.

Three minutes after that, when he cracked open an eye, he saw he was completely alone in the giant room.

Neither one of them ever said a word about it (even though he suspected she knew he had been awake), but he also most definitely never told her he’d had trouble going back to sleep after that. 

(He told himself it was the thoughts of falling into aliens, not any sort of longing for a very deadly redhead.)

 

3.

The third time was definitely, without a doubt, one hundred percent because of the alcohol. Tony couldn’t even remember how many whiskeys he had drank (all thanks to Thor, he might add. That guy should have been a bartender in another life), and before that night, he had been pretty certain Natasha couldn’t get drunk. Not because she was Russian (that would be a stereotype) but just because he had literally never even seen her tipsy. One time, he had seen her take five shots of vodka and not even looked dazed. In fact, he was pretty sure she had shot a glass off Clint’s head after that. (He never questioned the dares those two came up with. They all seemed dangerous, even to his standards.)

But whatever it was about that night, they were both definitely, without a doubt, one hundred percent drunk. Tony vaguely remembered stumbling down the hall at some point, someone hanging on to his arm and giggling in his ear. (Okay, honestly? He didn’t even know she could giggle either. But maybe he had imagined that part.)

He also vaguely remembered trying to find his bedroom, which seemed to have moved because he kept opening doors that should have been it but wasn’t. And then he remembered falling down on to a bed that was definitely not the one in his bedroom (it had pink sheets. He didn’t even know he owned pink sheets. He’d have to talk to Pepper about that) and deciding it was a good idea to stay there for the night. His giggling sidekick obviously had the same idea.

He next vaguely remembered at some point scooting over and wrapping his arms around her because he thought she looked cold and they weren’t lying under the covers but merely on top of them. He also vaguely remembered telling her she smelled good and getting a smile out of her, before she hugged him and laid her head on his chest. He then vaguely remembered her telling him — repeatedly, he might add — that his arc reactor was not as comfortable as a pillow but that she had slept on worse.

He didn’t at all remember falling asleep. But he did remember — clearly, no vagueness at all — waking up in the morning, feeling like utter shit, head pounding stomach twisting, body aching. 

He also clearly remembered — no vagueness at all — that holding on to her was the only thing that made him feel even a teeny bit better, even if she did squirm out of his arms, barely a hair out of place, before telling him if he told anyone about them sleeping together that she would kill him.

“We didn’t sleep together,” he muttered as she slipped out the door. “We cuddled.”

“I’ll kill you worse if you tell people that!” came her reply, much too loud for the banging in his head. But he remembered later that it made him smile anyway.

 

4.

The fourth time was clearly because she felt there were no other options. At least he assumed that was why. He didn’t really know because of course she didn’t tell him. All he was aware of at that point anyway was the fact that he had to be dying. He was pretty sure his chest was going to explode if the pounding in his head didn’t kill him first.

Everything hurt, and his whole body felt like it was on fire. He couldn’t get comfortable, he couldn’t make the pain go away. He also couldn’t remember how he’d dealt with things like this before Pepper because now there was no Pepper (which he was okay with, by the way. At least in moments when he wasn’t dying) and it was obvious that he was just going to perish alone.

He was so absorbed in the pain that he didn’t hear her footsteps or even hear the door open. Just, out of nowhere, there she was. 

“I’ve got you,” she said, or at least that’s what he thought she said. The pain might have been affecting his hearing, too. 

She had a cool cloth in her hand, and very tenderly — almost more tenderly than he had ever seen her do anything — she reached up and started wiping the sweat away from his forehead and his arms and his chest.

He wanted to actually say something to her, to ask her what she was doing or maybe ask her if she had been a nurse in her undercover, double-agent life, but instead it just came out as more of a grunt, but she smiled at him, and as he looked at her, he realized the smile actually touched her eyes for once. 

And then she did something he really didn’t expect. She slipped into bed beside him and pulled him into her arms, her fingers, cool against his hot skin, rubbing his back and carding through his hair, her soft voice whispering what sounded like lullabies even if he was pretty sure she was speaking in Russian.

The part of him that was almost humiliated by this weakness he was showing (and in front of someone who he didn’t think had ever been weak a day in her life) wanted to lash out and ask her what she thought she was doing, or maybe just snark at her about him not knowing she could even be nice, but against his impetuous attitude, the other part of him gave in and let her hold him. He fell asleep in her arms and woke up hours later in the exact same spot.

He never told her it helped, not even when he was better, although he did buy her a brand new TV the day after he was able to get out of bed and upgraded her widow bites for her, but he liked to think she knew. (It was Natasha, after all. She had to know, right?)

 

5.

The fifth time was because … well, it was because he owed her one. And also, because for as much of an ass as he knew he could be (and sometimes purposely was) the sound of her scream cut through him like a knife.

They were the only two people in the tower that night. Clint was off wherever Clint always disappeared to (Tony always imagined he had some sort of secret double life he never told any of them about). Thor was on Asgard. Bruce and Steve had gone off together, something about house-hunting in Brooklyn (Tony assumed they meant for Steve and not for them together, but really, who knew?).

Natasha had disappeared to her room hours earlier, so it was just Tony, entertaining himself in his lab with his robots, when JARVIS alerted him.

“Agent Romanoff appears to be having a nightmare, Sir,” JARVIS told him. Tony barely glanced up.

“Well, wake her up. Why are you telling me this? You never have before.” (It wasn’t like it was a secret that all of them occasionally had nightmares. That’s why JARVIS had been programmed to deal with them. It was very useful. Until now apparently.)

“I tried that, Sir. All measures have failed.”

Now Tony glanced up. That was definitely weird, but … “Can you try again?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Tony went back to his robots, but only half-heartedly. He was trying to decide what to do if JARVIS told him he still couldn’t wake her up. Walking in on a sleeping assassin did not seem like a smart idea, but yet …. 

But yet the memory of her holding him through his fever seemed to be permanently embedded in his mind.

“It didn’t work, Sir.”

Well, damn.

Barely a minute later Tony found himself outside her door, debating with himself. He really didn’t want her to kill him (consciously or unconsciously) and he also really didn’t want to intrude on her in what would obviously be a very vulnerable, personal moment, but what kind of friend would he be if he didn’t do anything?

That’s when she screamed. 

Loud enough for him to hear as if he were standing beside her. And so filled with terror it made his blood run cold.

“Let me in, JARVIS,” he commanded. (Finally, a benefit of being able to override any lock in the Tower. All the other times he’d tried, he’d been rewarded with people throwing objects at his head, and not always pillows either.)

He found Natasha in a second. She was on the couch, instead of in bed, but she was curled up in a fetal position. Even as he watched her, she was half-screaming, half-whimpering and tears were dripping down her cheeks.

The sight almost broke his heart (and not just because she was _crying_ , something he had most definitely never ever ever seen before).

He dropped to his knees in front of the couch and called her name. “Natasha,” he repeated, when she made no sign that she heard him. “Natasha, wake up, you’re okay. Wake up.”

It took a long time, him calling her name, her still half-screaming, half-whimpering. He wanted to touch her, but he was more afraid of scaring her than he was of her hurting him, so he just raised his voice, a little louder each time, until, finally, her eyes flew open and she sprang upright on the couch, pupils blown, face flushed.

“It’s okay, it’s just me, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he told her as she panted for breath, her eyes finally focusing on him.

He slipped on to the couch beside her and pulled her into his arms before she could protest. “It was just a dream,” he whispered into her hair. “You’re okay, my little ninja.”

He heard what he thought was a laugh at that, but she didn’t try to pull away. So he kept his arms around her and slowly rubbed her back.

When she yawned against his neck, her breath warm, he carefully laid them both down on the couch.

“Are you going to go back to your lab?” she whispered, so quietly he almost thought he hallucinated it.

“No,” he whispered back to her. “Go back to sleep. I’m not going anywhere.”

He kissed her on the forehead as her eyes slipped close. When she woke up in the morning, he was still holding her, still watching over her. 

He came back the next night, clad in his pajamas and slipped on to the bed beside her. Natasha scowled.

“What?” he said. “It’s just a precaution, in case you have more nightmares.”

“Yeah?” she said. “Because I think you just like cuddling with me and you don’t want to admit it.”

“I definitely do not.”

“Well, I definitely don’t need you to.”

“If you say so,” he said. 

(They fell asleep inches apart. They woke up in the morning snuggled together. Tony came back a third night … and then a fourth and a fifth and so on. He never admitted he just liked cuddling with her, but he never made any move to stop it. But for the record, neither did she.)


End file.
